After years of trying to become a more confident guy I finally realized this fact, that confidence isn’t necessarily a spiritual battle, nor fully a mental battle or even a self-image battle, it’s simply something we earn.

Confidence is more than self-believe, but self-awareness and knowledge. It’s knowing who you are and understanding that you’re likely capable of whatever you set your mind to. But even as a belief in the Self, any belief system must be founded on evidence and fact, or else it’s weak and fluffy and won’t hold you up when resistance comes your way. This is where true confidence shows itself and separates itself from cockiness.

Boldly Go

I made decent money at a relatively young age, then quit that relatively safe gig and risked comfort for something greater. To create this greater vision I had for myself and who I wanted to be, I had to take a few steps back, at least it seemed that way. It’s in this fire that I gained true confidence.

It’s failure that has helped me know that no matter how deep I fall, I can always rise. More than anything this has helped me risk, risk everything, not afraid of the work that will come or the failure that could ensue, just happy to take a chance at something I believe in or a challenge I want to face.

Much of this has to do with faith both in a higher power and in myself, but if I’m honest most of it comes from proof, proof that even though I thought I could drop no lower, I did, and proof that no matter how low I got, I not only always made due, but made the best of the situation and improved upon my situation.

Confidence Isn’t Self-Image

Confidence doesn’t come from wearing nice clothes or making a lot of money or having a lot of women. Though each can in their own way help and serve as needed evidence of just how good you are, they alone are things, and things don’t make you tougher, experiences do.

Just as a bully covers up his insecurities with violence, many others cover theirs with dapperness. The result is always the same, a feeding of the insecurity by not allowing it to strengthen.

What follows are 12 things or steps that will help you become truly confident, this isn’t going to simply help you talk to women, it will help you do anything and everything your soul is beaconing you to do. These 11 things will make you more confident, but also tougher, grittier, stronger. Confidence and toughness are one in the same. So if confidence is something you lack, run down the list, take the risks, and work your ass off at strengthening your spirit so you can move your mountains and shape your reality to whatever vision you see fit.

1. Get exposed. To become truly confident you have to expose your insecurities. You have to lay them out there in the open to be picked apart. It’s only when you expose them that they are given a chance to heal and strengthen.

2. Be audacious. While confidence comes from “wins”, an any and every win is important, the confidence that will see you through life’s highs and lows only comes from those victories that you had to truly earn; the great victories that required more from you than you thought you had. The victories that required audacity and every other step that we’ll discuss after this one.

Don’t aim for things you know you can accomplish, this will bring you nothing of value. It’s only those goals that are gnawing at your soul that will bring you your newfound confidence and pride.

3. Be relentless. Have you ever set a goal and shut out all other areas of your life to accomplish it? Remember how good that felt? And not even the accomplishment but the value that comes from consistency and being relentless at something that meant a lot to you. Do nothing half-assed, there is no point. And if half-assed is your way of doing things your belief in yourself will be the same.

4. Be disciplined. Without discipline you won’t accomplish anything. If you haven’t accomplished anything you won’t be truly confident, and if you are you’re merely delusional and you will one day be exposed as the fraud that you know deep down you are.

5. Focus. Don’t focus on becoming more confident, focus on being better. If you’re better and you have the evidence to prove that you’re better than you once were, you’re going to become more confident.

Find something you want to accomplish, set the most audacious goal within that field that you can set, then focus on accomplishing it and let the confidence come breathe life into who are you and how you view yourself.

6. Create good habits. Everything we’ve mentioned is essentially a habit. If your life is full of good habits you’re going to get more shit done and more done at a higher quality. If you do more, you’ll be more. If you are more, if you’re better, there’s nothing that can stop you.

7. Get shit done. What you’ll find with the guys who are truly confident is that they’re of the strong and silent mould. They aren’t loud or boisterous, yet no one will mess with them.

[Tweet “The loudest one in the room is always the weakest.”]

Don’t ever tell others how great you are. Just get shit done and let the accolades come as they may.

8. Lose often. We learn by both winning and losing. You need both. Don’t flea from failure, into safety’s arms. Run to those things that excite you, that are difficult and audacious and if you lose, learn, adjust, and then win.

9. Take pride. Have higher expectations for yourself. If you think you’re worth more per hour, work as if you’re getting paid double. If you think you’re worth a better body, build one. Take pride in who you are, how you look, and what you say.

Don’t be one of the masses that uses their words without thought, who works without purpose, and lives without intent.

Take pride. Do more. Be more. Expect more.

10. Be thankful daily. One aspect of confidence is being thankful. It doesn’t matter how bad or good your life is right now, every single day get in the habit of writing down 3 different and specific things you’re grateful for. If you do this you’ll see that it becomes difficult not to be confident.

11. Don’t be too serious. Laugh at yourself, be self-deprecating at times. Don’t take yourself too seriously, don’t take this life too seriously. Be willing to laugh at your flaws, at the good times and the bad, it will help you through these tough times, it will lead you to develop a deep, strong confidence that can’t be shaken.

12. Always be chasing. Though confidence comes from being happy and proud of who you are, you can never be satisfied with who you are. It’s a fine line that we walk as confident men who also want to be great, better, even Legendary. On one hand we have a burning desire to improve, on the other we’re confident enough to risk it all.

Have an idea of who you want to be 10 years from now. Write it down, him down; his characteristics, accomplishments, and values. You’ll never catch him, you can’t, but it’s the chase that will lead you to being who you are capable of becoming.

The Evidence is There

I should say that the capacity is there. You have the capacity to be great and to do great things. It’s within you to accomplish anything and everything and to rise from anything. It’s within you to be supremely confident, you just need proof.

This proof doesn’t come from validation – neither internal or external. It doesn’t come from wishing it were so or believing it to be real. Proof comes from doing, it comes from climbing out of the depths, proving to yourself that nothing and no one can keep you down. It comes from accomplishing goals, setting your mind to something and achieving it.

Every single day of your life you should have goals that are set, and you should accomplish something daily, and not something easy, but something that requires considerable effort or risk in return. As you begin to pile up these wins you’ll begin to see a more confident man in the mirror. A man who’s willing to take greater risks because he knows that even if he loses everything, he can rise again. A man willing to work harder and aim higher. This is who you are, this is you living up to your potential, you owe it to yourself to prove yourself worthy.

It’s now in your hands. Tough decisions have to be made, risks must be taken, work must be done.